The Adventure Series Begins
by ShooterH aka Shoe
Summary: Adventure fic #1! This is where it all starts. Eggman discovers that video games are actually parallel universes, and...stuff happens. It's actually pretty funny. PG-13 for brief language.


My Adventure

You know, a trip to the mall wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't shopping for clothes.  Normally, I cringe at the mere mention of buying clothing.  And what's weird is that I'm a 15-year-old girl, see.  I don't do shopping.

Now, if it's for electronics and stuff, I'm all for it.  Ever since I was two or three, I've been into video games.  Especially Sega.  Then Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft, in descending order.  Sorry if I'm offending anyone, but these are my personal tastes.

Anyway, my name is Hillary.  Yeah, I have a last name, but I won't release it to the public for a very big reason that you're about to find out.  Just sit tight, don't blink, and try not to shove a roll of duct tape up your nose.

Yes, I'm a light Weird Al fan.

Chapter One

As I was saying about that trip to the mall...

It was a normal day, except for the fact that both my parents had to use nail guns to get me to stay in the car.  Well, not _really_, but the point is that I was really refusing to join them to the mall.  Extreme verbal measures had to be taken that I won't repeat here.  And so all three of us pulled out of the driveway on really bad terms.

We arrived at the mall a while later, parked, and went inside.  I shoved my hands in the pockets of my loose khaki pants, then immediately yanked them out again to throw them up in the air in celebration.

"HALLELOOLAH!"

My mom glared at me, but I was still almost dancing circles around her.  We had just stumbled upon a big convention that my dad had been obligated to attend.  I had completely forgotten about it for some reason, but I _did_ remember that both my parents had promised that I could run free for about an hour while they stayed and socialized.

I never have been a mall goer, so of course, I had to stop and look at the map on the wall.  I traced down the list with my finger.

"Babbage's, Sam Goody, Electronics Boutique...Tilt Arcade!"

I pivoted in place and started towards the escalators to go to the second floor.  Tilt Arcade was the best place in the whole mall.  It had Dance Dance Revolution Extreme, at which I'm very talented, and also a South Park pinball machine.  Add Carnevil, Gauntlet Legends, and Crazy Taxi to the mix and you've got a pretty damned cool arcade.

Anyway, as I was happily skipping across the mall, I noticed that it was strangely getting less and less crowded.  I was almost to the escalators when it became completely deserted.  No one at all was around.  Weird.

And then it happened.  I saw a robot hovering in the middle of the floor a stone's throw ahead of me.  I glanced around discreetly for a second, then suddenly ran and did a homerun slide on my knees to the robot.

"Please, Egg Keeper dude, tell me from where you cometh!"

It was a dream come true.  I had just stumbled upon one of the most annoying badniks from Sonic Adventure 1, but it was still a dream come true.  I was practically kissing the tiled floor in front of the thing.

The Egg Keeper tilted downward to look at me.  It beeped like R2D2 for a second.  I looked up.

"What'd you say about my momma?"

It backed up slowly and then head butted me about ten feet across the floor.  I jumped up immediately and charged, armed with nothing but fists, feet, and verbal abuse.  I dealt a kick to the thing, but it suddenly exploded in front of me for no reason at all before my shoe met its head.  I froze with one leg extended, watching the Egg Keeper go poof.  An itsy-bitsy tiger floated up from the disintegrating pile of metal.  I did a little victory dance.

"Small animals for me, hey!  Small animals for me, hey!"

"Hey?"

I froze again, this time in mid-victory-dance position.  I slowly turned my head to see where the voice came from.  "Aren't you gonna thank me?" she said.

"Amy?  Amy Rose?"  I stared in disbelief, still frozen.  Then I exploded.  "OHMYGODWEEEEE!"  I dropped to my knees and worshipped her.  She was leaning forward on her pink hammer, watching me.

"Wow; I've never had anyone appreciate me like this before!"

I looked up.  "Appreciate you?  You're...you're _you_!  Why wouldn't they?"

"My friends say I'm annoying," she said.  "Hey, how do you know me?"

I slowly looked behind me and pointed to a Sonic Advance poster hanging in the window of Electronics Boutique.  Amy hands flew to her mouth, letting the hammer fall over.  The handle made a solid noise when it hit the tile floor.

"Is that really us?" she said quietly.

"Yeah..."  I sat up.  "Oh, hey – How did you get here?"

"Where?"

"To this world or whatever.  You're fictional.  You're a game sprite.  You're a cartoon character.  How??"

"Uh..."  She thought for a moment.  "I don't really know...Eggman had something to do with it, I'm sure..."

All of a sudden, we were interrupted by a loud noise from behind the escalators.

"WOOO!  Eat this!"

Sonic ran out from behind the escalators trailing three Blade Spinner robots.  He jumped suddenly and did a homing attack on one, then punched and kicked the other two simultaneously.  All three went boom.  The blue hedgehog landed on his feet, collected the small animals that had appeared, and dusted himself off.  He trotted over.

"Amy?  I've been looking all over for you!"

She gasped.  "You were??"  Sonic got a huge unwanted hug.  I stood up and removed Amy, setter her down a foot or two away.

"Thank you."  Sonic looked up at me.  "And you are...?"

"Oh, me?"  I got flustered.  "I'm Hillary."

"Last name?"

I told him.  "Listen, I'm really wondering how y'all got here."

Sonic crossed his arms.  "Eggman blew open some sort of a portal and threw us in, of course.  He's always the reason for weird things happening."

"Did he follow you?"

"Probably not."  Sonic looked at the two-story ceiling.  "He just wanted to get rid of us."

"Is there any way to get back?" I asked.

"How the hell would I know?  Tails is the one who deals with that stuff, and he's still back at home."

"Bummer."

Amy spoke.  "Does Eggman think he can just _leave_ us here?"

"Yeah," Sonic and I both said at the same time.

"Heh, Robotnik's a childish genius who thinks he can get away with anything and everything," I said.

Sonic raised an eyebrow.  "What's so 'genius' about Eggman?"

"Dude, he has an I.Q. of 300," I replied.

"What's yours?"

"A little less than half of his."

"140?"

"Somewhere around there."

The ceiling directly above us just kind of suddenly exploded downward, raining down debris and stuff on all three of us.  My glasses got so dusty I couldn't see through them at all.  I took them off, blew on them, and put them back on.  I looked up and saw a huge shadow through the hole.  A green UFO-abduction-style beam shot down and covered the three of us.

"What's happening?" Amy asked shakily.  I knew, but I was too shocked to say anything.  Next thing I noticed was my feet lifting off of the floor.

"GAH!  Not cool!"  One of my shoelaces had become untied, and the shoe itself was dangling by my big toe.  Luckily, Sonic was right below me, so he jammed the shoe back on.  I spent the rest of the way up the green beam tying my shoelace.

Chapter Two

We came up through a hole in the bottom of the Egg Carrier to the main room underneath the deck.  A maid robot zoomed by, hastily cleaning the floor with an electric broom.

Ahead of us was Dr. Robotnik himself standing on a stage of sorts in front of a huge screen displaying a green frog with a short, thick tail.  Four E-100 series robots stood, quietly observing Eggman from the foot of the stage.  Each was a different color, and each was holding a different frog.  Eggman looked pissed.

"No, no, NO!  I told you to get _this_ frog!  The one with the _tail_!"  He motioned to the big screen and then stepped down and paced in front of the robots, suddenly stopping in front of the red one on the far left.  Eggman studied its frog.

"Yes, YES!  This is it!  Good work!  The rest of you – Be gone!"

The other three E-100s were teleported away.  Eggman grabbed the frog and studied it, comparing it with the one shown on the big screen.

Sonic suddenly ran forward.  "Yo, Eggman, what's up with that frog?  It's got a weird tail where its ass should be!"

Robotnik didn't turn to look at the hedgehog.  "It's carrying a Chaos Emerald, stupid – Sonic!?  How did you get up here!?"

Sonic pointed back towards the maid robot.  It stopped sweeping momentarily and waved.  Eggman suddenly sidestepped to a control panel, hit a button, and made the maid robot go _poof_.  "How did this happen!?" he abruptly shouted.

"Jeez, you don't have to yell, I'm right here," Sonic said casually.  "My first guess was the maid robot.  Don't you think she looked suspicious?"

Eggman raised an eyebrow.  I sneezed.

"Who's back there?" he barked.  I stepped forward, dragging Amy with me.

"It is I, Hillary, defeater of the Master Hand, enforcer of grammar, and professional maker of grilled-cheese sandwiches!  FEAR ME!"

Amy cracked up.

"You heard her," Sonic said.

"How did _she_ get here?" Eggman asked, more in curiosity than anger.

"I don't know!"  I threw up my arms.  "All I know is that it's a pleasure to meet you, Ivo."

Robotnik exploded.  "You will address me as Dr. Robotnik!  Nothing else!"

I completely ignored him and began parading around, singing his theme from Sonic Adventure 2.

"The story begins with who's gonna win, and knowing the danger that lies within!  Aboard the ARK, a genius at heart, wanting to unlock the mysteries of life – "

"SHUT UP!" Robotnik yelled.

" – I am the eggman, that's what I am!  I am the eggman; I've got the master plan!  I am the egg – "

"I told you to SHUT UP!!!"  His voice echoed for a second or two around the huge room.

" – man?"

"Be quiet."  Robotnik was glaring at me through his dark glasses, stroking his mustache.  "Where did you get that song?"

I stuck my hands in my pockets.  "Oh, everyone knows it."

"Huh?"

"It's your theme, dude."  I shifted my weight.  "From Sonic Adventure 2.  Wanna hear the second verse?"

"No.  It's disgraceful.  Who wrote it?"

"Paul Shortwo.  He also sings it."

"Is 'Eggman' my official name now?"

"Believe it."

Sonic sighed.  "So, are we just gonna stand around and criticize music, or is something gonna happen?"

"I'd rather stand around and criticize music," Amy said.

"I want something to happen," I countered.

Eggman got a devious expression on his face.

I decided to change the sentence.  "I want something to happen that doesn't involve Chez Wiz."

Everyone stared at me.

Eggman punched a button on the control panel and spoke into a microphone that popped up.  "Note to self:  Investigate Chez Wiz.  May be a possible weapon."

Chapter Three

The giant cage door slammed down, locking all three of us in.  We were in the prison cell room of the Egg Carrier.  I stood there, facing outward, watching E-102 gamma walk out of the room.  I suddenly heard a new voice.

"What took you guys so long?"

I whipped around.  Miles "Tails" Prower was sitting in the back of the cell, holding a black and red chao egg.

"How'd you know we'd be here?" Sonic asked.

"I'm the one who set off the anti-gravity beam," the fox answered.  "Did you really not know?"

"Why _would_ we know?"  Amy put her hands on her hips.  "You're not supposed to get caught."

"Well, I got caught activating the beam after sneaking aboard the ship.  Check out this chao egg."  He held it up.

Through their entire conversation I had been standing there, slack jawed.  Sonic gave me a weird look.  I shut my mouth.

"Whoa.  Everything is how it was in the game."

I got three stares.

"The chao egg.  In Sonic Adventure 1, there was a chao egg in this very cell."  I pointed to the metal floor.  "It's just cool, that's all."

"What about your parents?" Sonic asked.  "You got any?"

"Yeah; both of 'em.  I wonder what they're doing..."

"Probably being worried sick about you," Amy said.  "If I were you, I'd try to find a way to get back home."

"Hey, you're not me, and that's not what I would do, anyway."  I put my hands behind my head.  "I'm quite happy right now, thank you."

There was a good-sized window in the back wall of the cell, filled with blue sky.  Huh.  That wasn't in the game.  I walked over to it and smushed my face against the glass to check out where we were going.  All of a sudden, a giant black and blue cloudy..._thing_ appeared directly in front of the Egg Carrier.  It grew bigger and bigger, big enough so that it could swallow the whole flying fortress.  It was a portal!  We were going through the portal!  To where, I had no idea.

"Hey."  I nudged Tails with my foot.  "Where we goin'?"

The fox stood up and looked up through the window.  "Through a portal.  Most likely leading back to our world.  Eggman discovered your world about three hours ago, and tried to use it to his advantage.  But he failed, obviously, because we're all right back in his hair."

"What hair?"

"We're all right back in his moustache."

"That'll work."

Tails turned around, still holding the chao egg.  "I've got an idea.  If we can land this egg on that big button right outside the cell, the door will open."

I looked where he was pointing.  There was a raised cylinder sticking up from the floor that passed for somewhat of a button.  Sonic took the egg, went to the cage door, carefully judged the distance, and tossed the chao egg.  Perfect landing.  The egg weighed just enough to hold down the button so we could scramble out.

Sonic, Amy, and I followed Tails out of the room, though the hedgehog hammer room, and out into the main area where Eggman had chewed out the E-100s a while ago.  No one was around.  Tails led us right back into another door beside the one we had just come out of.  Inside was a largish room, containing an assortment of old and/or disassembled machinery.  I turned 360s looking all around.

Tails trotted over to one specific pile of junk.  He gave it a whack with a tailspin, and the pile fell down, revealing a dusty robotisizer.  The fox immediately went to work at its control panel.  A holographic screen popped up in front of him.

Sonic walked over.  "Exactly _what_ are you doing?"

"I'm rewriting the programming."

"Why?"

"Since this is an older model of the robotisizer, I can mess it up however I want without making it self-destruct."

"Newer robotisizers are programmed to go boom?" I asked.

"Yeah," Tails answered, "because Eggman put in an annoying chip that senses the operator's DNA pattern.  If it senses an imposter, it fries the whole machine."

"But y'all don't have DNA patterns," I stated.

"We don't?"  Amy cocked her head to one side.

"You shouldn't," I continued.  "Y'all are game sprites.  You're hollow on the inside 'cause everything here's made of 3D computer graphics."

I got weird stares.  I continued again.  "Haven't y'all ever noticed that sometimes your hand or foot'll go right through something?"

More stares.  I sighed and pointed at Tails.  "Look, check it out.  Tails is programmed to be always swishing his tails around, but the tails themselves aren't programmed to obey any barriers.  See?  They're going right through the floor."

The fox twisted around to look at his tails, swishing up and down, passing through the floor every time.  "They always do that."  He shrugged.

"Exactly!"  I sighed again.  "Your whole entire world is a video game.  Sonic Adventure 1.  It rocks."

The three furries silently exchanged weird looks for a minute.

"Look, can we investigate this later?" Tails said.  "I'm trying to do something that's gonna make this whole situation a lot easier."

"Explain, please," I stated.

Tails spoke as he went to town on the control panel.  "Remember the DNA chip in the newer robotisizer models?  I stole one, and now I'm going to use its technology to completely change the function of this old robotisizer."  He bent down and opened a compartment on the front of the control panel, revealing a bunch of wires and circuit boards.  He brought out the DNA chip and started connecting stuff together.  "What's gonna happen is – "  A spark flew in his face.  " – this robotisizer will be able to completely transform DNA patterns into other DNA patterns.  Cool, huh?"

I suddenly realized that I had forgotten to breathe.  I sucked in air as I comprehended what Tails had just said.  "So you're saying that this machine'll be able to change someone into someone else?"

"Uh-huh."  Tails nodded without looking up.  "Exactly.  Since you're an overlander, I think we all know that you can't do anything remotely powerful – "

"Hey!"  I bristled.

"Sorry...Anyway, I thought that modifying this robotisizer could help."

I clapped my hands once and rubbed them together.  "Let's do this.  Oh, can you hold this twenty-dollar bill for me while the whole DNA thing's going on?"

"Sure."

I pulled a folded bill out of my pocket and handed it to Tails.

Chapter Four

A few minutes later and I was sitting in the oversized metal chair, feeling stupid.  I glanced around nervously, even though no one else was around but Sonic, Amy, and Tails.  I took a deep breath and sighed to try to calm my nerves.  I was really, really excited.  I had given Tails a description of my own furry character that I often used on various Sonic the Hedgehog websites:

Purple hedgehog girl with two long sections of bangs cascading over either side of the face.  Light teal eyes with random flecks of brown pigment, as were my real eyes.  Still wearing glasses, just for looks.  Light teal-colored strapless top with matching wrist-warmers.  Khaki shorts, and matching cargo boots; clunky, but still built for speed.

And so it began.  The clear glass dome overhead lowered until it was clamped down to the platform I was seated on.  Tails hit a button and the whole machine started to hum.  White energy slowly emerged from underneath the metal chair, extending across the small platform to the glass dome.  It traveled up the glass, obstructing all view of anything outside.  Then the white light/energy stuff grew inward from the floor and glass until the whole space was filled.  It wasn't as weird as I expected it to be.  There was only the feeling of getting smaller; nothing else.  The light receded and the dome rose.

I jumped out of the chair and made a perfect landing on my feet.  I twisted around, checking my new self out from all angles.  I noticed my reflection in a large square of sheet metal leaning up against the wall.

I was a hot little hedgehog!

"Dun dun dun!"  I slid forward on my knees and held my arms out, singing my own little intro/fanfare.  I jumped up and attempted to moonwalk, but it didn't work.  I tripped and fell backwards, landing on my ass and hitting my head on the side of the control panel where Tails was still standing.  Sonic started clapping slowly, deliberately, and sarcastically.  I stood up slowly and adjusted my glasses.

"Just because you're a furry now doesn't mean that you can dance," said Sonic.

"Shut up," I snapped.  "Give me my money, please."

Chapter Five

All four of us were up on the top deck of the Egg Carrier, admiring the view.  Well, actually only the three of them were admiring the view, while I went ballistic and behaved literally like a ping pong/racquet/pinball.  I was bouncing everywhere at dizzying speeds, zooming circles around Sonic, Amy, and Tails.  Sonic yawned.

"Listen, could you stop for a minute?" he said tiredly.

I froze in mid spin and dropped to the deck in front of him.  "What?"

"We should get to business."

"I know, right."  I walked up right to the edge of the ship.  No guardrail.  "So now what?"

"Aren't you worried about being away for this long?" asked Tails.

"No.  What I _am_ worried about is what my parents'll do to me when I get back, 'cause I have a feeling it's not gonna be for a while.  And they're not very lenient.  And if I tried to tell them the _truth_ about this whole thing, they'd send me to a mental institution or something."

"How do _you_ know that you won't go back for a while?" Sonic asked.

I sighed, turned around to face him, and started counting on my fingers.  "First of all, this Egg Carrier is friggin' huge and annoying as hell to get around on.  Secondly, we haven't seen the eggman around at all, so we have no idea what our goal is.  Third, the Egg Carrier isn't Eggman's only residence, so we'll probably have to search around the city below.  Fourth, I need time to think up a good explanation for my parents.  And last of all, I _like_ it here.  That good enough for ya?"

I got three dead stares of incredulity.

"And the DNA thing is reversible, right?" I asked.  Tails nodded.  "Okay, then.  Where to, now?"

"Didn't you say this whole thing is a video game?" Amy wondered.

"Yeah."

"Then, have you beaten it before?"

"Of course.  I know this whole universe upside-down and backwards."

"Then _you_ lead the way," Sonic said.

I crossed my arms.  "What, are you afraid of me taking your spotlight?"

Sonic frowned and glanced around.  "No."

"I don't believe you."

"Tails, _why_ did you bring her here, again?" he asked, turning abruptly.

I cracked up laughing for no reason.  Here I was, stealing the limelight without even intending to.  Hey, it wasn't _my_ fault that I knew more than Sonic himself.

"I didn't _mean_ to bring her here, Sonic, it just happened by accident," Tails shot back.  "Besides, now we've got an extra furry around.  The more, the better.  And Hillary probably knows more than we do about all this." 

I cringed.  "Hey.  One thing – can I change the subject for a sec? – I don't like using my real name around here.  It sounds stupid when put next to your names."

"...Okay..."  Sonic put his chin in his hand.  "What are you thinking of?"

"Shooter."

"Shooter?"

"It's my screen name, and I'm already using it for my furry character."

"Oh."  Sonic smiled.  "Shooter it is, then."

Tails waved his hand in the air.  "Uh, I was talking.  Okay?  Okay.  Um...what was I saying...?  Oh, yeah...Uh, I was saying that, uh, Shooter, uh, knows more than we do, so we should probably let her take the lead."

Amy was surprised.  "You're that quick to give up Sonic as your idol?"

"What!?  NO!  I'm making a logical conclusion based on the evidence that Shooter has played this whole damned game _through_ already!!!"

Sonic took a step backwards.  "Whoa, Tails."

I was standing there slack-jawed.  Tails actually thought that I could be the leader.  Ha.  Leader?  I wouldn't be able to lead lemmings of a cliff if I _tried_.  "Uh, y'all, I think you should reconsider this – "

Tails exploded.  "You will be our fearless leader and YOU WILL LIKE IT!!!"

Complete silence, except for Tails's voice echoing around the ship.

"...Okay..."  I stood completely still while Tails stared at me.  Hm.  The ice needed to be broken.  I abruptly put on the face of a "fearless leader", as Tails described it.  "Alright.  First things first.  We don't know where Eggman is.  How do we fix that, you ask?  We go and look for him.  Where do we look for him?  We split up and go in separate directions.  What do we do when we find him?  Kick his ass and call for help if needed."

The three of them stood still as stone for a second.  Then they exploded simultaneously.

"I'll search above!"

"I'll go below!"

"I'll take the main deck!"

And just like that, Tails, Amy, and Sonic took off in three different directions.  I was left standing there, dumbfounded.  Damn, these guys were gullible.  So, now that they were off running around, what did that leave for me to do?  I looked around, turning circles in place, stopping to view the city below.  Station Square.  It sure looked a lot bigger from the air.  In Sonic Adventure 1, it was tiny; only three small areas.  Maybe this was blended with Sonic Adventure 2 somehow, where Station Square was absolutely huge.  Either way, it was cool.

"Nice view?" said Eggman, walking up beside me.

"Uh huh.  Hey, we've been looking for you."

"Really."  He looked down at the city far below.  "Big city."

"Yeah.  I wanna go buy stuff."

"But you don't have any money."

"I've got a twenty in my pocket right now."

"Twenty yen?"

I exploded.  "What?!  Twenty _dollars_, stupid!"  I yanked it out of my shorts and waved it above my head.  "Right here!"

Eggman saw an opportunity and grabbed my wrist hard.

"Please don't take my money," I said calmly.  "I'd like to use it."

"I'm not interested in money!"  He lifted me up off the ground to his eye level.  I swear, his glasses were completely opaque.  "I'm interested in _you_!" he yelled.

I screamed.  "YOU SICK ASSHOLE!!!"

Eggman dropped me and covered his face.  "That's _not_ what I meant!!!"

"PERVERT!!!"  I scrambled backwards in a sort of crabwalk, dangerously close to the edge of the ship.

"SHUT UP!  I had just finished saying that I wasn't interested in money, and I was concentrating on figuring out your existence, and it just slipped out with the wrong connotations!!!"

"...You sure, dude?  You're like, fifty years old.  And you're still single."

"I don't appreciate you knowing all this about me!"

"Everyone knows it!"

"How?!"

"Look on the Internet, fool!"

Robotnik froze.  After an intense moment of silence, he turned and walked away.  I jumped up.  "Hey!  I still have to kick your ass!"

He didn't look back.  He just made a shooing motion with his hand and disappeared below deck.  I slouched and stared at my shoes, feeling stupid.  I had just let the eggman get away.  What would the others think of me now?

As a matter of fact, where _were_ they?  I hadn't even heard so much as a peep.  The Egg Carrier was completely silent.  Then I heard something like a small rocket firing.  I looked up.

An Egg Keeper robot charged right for me.  I had less than a second to react, and even with my newfound speed, I didn't get to.  The robot rammed me over the edge.

"Oh craaaap!"  The ship was already getting smaller as I fell.  "AAH!  THE ATMOSPHERE!!  AAAAAAAAAAAH – Whoa!"

Chapter Six

_Whumpf!_  I landed in someone's arms.  I was so surprised, I forgot to breathe again.

"What's going on?" Knuckles asked, still gliding in the air, carrying me like a baby.  I took a breath and threw my arms above my head.

"WOOyeah!!!"  I started laughing.  I was celebrating.

"What's going on?" he repeated.

"Oh, uh, there?"  I pointed back up to the ever-diminishing Egg Carrier.  "Sonic, Tails, and Amy are still up there, but an Egg Keeper butted me over the side."

"Who exactly are you?"

"My real name's Hillary, but please address me as Shooter."

"Yes, ma'am."

Wee!  He called me 'ma'am'!  "So, uh, you were asking 'what now', right?"

"Uh huh.  I can't get back up to the Egg Carrier while carrying you, so I'm gonna either have to drop you or land."

"Let's land, please."

"As you wish," he said good-naturedly.  The two of us shot downward towards Station Square.  It was absolutely huge.  We shot between two skyscrapers and into the heart of the city, where we landed on a busy sidewalk.  Knuckles put me down.  I brushed myself off.

"What, no 'my hero' kiss?" he snipped, once again good-naturedly.

"I'm taken, dude."  I turned and looked around.  There were people _everywhere_.  They were pushing their way along the sidewalks, crowding the roads with cars, stuffing the stores lining the streets.  Well, it probably wasn't _that_ crowded for a huge city, but it sure seemed like it to me.  I came from a town of roughly 10,000, where the most populated place was the brand-new HEB.

"This...is huge."  I looked up at the really, really tall buildings crammed in with each other.

"I know, really," Knuckles replied, as if it didn't bother him.  "So, where'd you come from?"

"The sky."  I pointed up.  "I'm a fallen angel."

Knuckles raised an eyebrow.  "But you just told me..."

"Ha.  I'm kidding.  But if you wanna know the truth, I really did come here from the sky.  I don't know where or how, but I know that's what happened.  Okay, I'm from another world, but I did get here through the sky.  Through a portal, actually."

"Your story keeps changing."

"That's because I'm getting nearer and nearer to the truth, so keep listening."

Knuckles put a hand to his forehead in thought.  "...Another world?"

"Uh huh.  This one's a video game."

"Huh?"

"Right now, we are standing in the midst of Sonic Adventure.  I'm not sure if it's the first or second one at the moment, though..."  I turned to indicate the city around us.

"What?"

"The video game!  There are two, one and two, Sonic Adventure 1 and Sonic Adventure 2!"

"I don't get it, really, I don't."

I sighed.  "Okay.  Do you know what a video game is?"

"Yes."

"Do you know what a sequel is?"

"Yes."

"Okay, then.  What was a video game in my world seems to be real, and we seem to be in that video game right now, only I don't know if it's Sonic Adventure 1 or 2."

A light went on in Knuckles's head.  "Oh.  Hey, why is it named after Sonic?"

"All the Sonic the Hedgehog games are named after him except for two."

"What are they?"

"Tails Adventure and Knuckles Chaotix."

"Alright!  I've got my own game!"  He paused.  "...Uh, wait, you said 'games' earlier.  Plural form.  How many does Sonic have?"

"Oh man, I'd have to go count again to be exact, but the last time I counted, it came out to be around...oh, I don't know, fifteen, twenty?"

Knuckles exploded.  "Dammit!"

Some of the people passing by on the sidewalk turned their heads.  I waved and laughed to myself.  Knuckles reminded me of Luigi, always in Mario's shadow, only it was Sonic instead of Mario.  It's funny if you think about it long enough.

"Hey, we need to get back on track, dude," I said.

"Uh huh."  Knuckles was cooled off.  "Where to, then?  Should we just wait until the Egg Carrier lands?"

"I don't think we have a choice.  I'm just worried that Sonic and them won't be able to handle themselves without my superior intellect."  I tapped my head comically.

"Yep."  Knux stretched.  "So, where do we go?  I've been asking over and over."

"Oh, uh..."  I shielded my eyes to look skyward.  "I don't see the Egg Carrier anywhere at all, but I might know where it's going.  The only problem is that I have absolutely no idea where we are at present."

"We are currently in the clothing district."

Fireworks went off inside my head.  "Ha!  If we're in the clothing district, then that means that there are other districts, and in a huge-ass city like this, there's bound to be an electronics district!"  I took a breath.  "Just like Tokyo!  How much will a twenty buy here?"

"Twenty yen?"

"NO!!!"

Chapter Seven

"This is more than awesome."  I looked up at the shelves.  They were stuffed with Sega merchandise.  I reached up and picked out a limp doll resembling NiGHTS.  Coolness.  I put it back and grabbed two others, a Sonic doll and a hero chaos chao doll.  I held them up beside each other to compare.

"Hmm.  What do you think, Knux?"

"Get the chao."

"Why, you jealous?"

"Maybe."  He reached up to the shelf and took a doll in his own likeness.  "It's the guardian of Angel Island...in plush form."  He made the doll dance around in the air while supplying it with a high voice.  "Look at me, I'm so tough!"  He made it flex an arm.  I cracked up laughing.

"Heh.  So, really, which one do you think I should get?  Out of all of them."

"Uh..."  Knuckles put the doll back.  "The Tails one is cool."

"Wouldn't you believe it – I've already got one back at home."

"Really?  Whoa."

"I know, right."  I turned my attention back to the rest of the store.  "Maybe I should just get a Space Channel 5 shirt."  I walked over to the clothing rack and picked the smallest size out.  I held it up to myself and discovered that it was still too big.  Knuckles walked over.

"Stores always carry furry sizes in the back.  All you have to do is ask."

I perked up.  Within minutes, I walked out of the store wearing a brand-spanking-new neon orange off-the-shoulder midriff top with the little Space Channel 5 logo on the front.

"You know, you do look just like that girl Ulala, being purple and all."

"Her hair is pink."

"Yeah, I know, but it's close enough.  Hey, you look good."

I blushed.  For the first time in my life, I was wearing revealing clothes and being okay with it.  Usually, as my human self, I wouldn't even go near a midriff.  I wasn't over-weight or anything; I was just self-conscious.  But I was okay now.

"Hey, are we ever gonna keep on task?" Knuckles asked.

"Huh?  Oh, yeah, that.  Unhh..."  I looked up to search for the Egg Carrier in the sky again.  I spotted a little orange dot straight overhead, and it was getting bigger.  I squinted through my glasses, even though I now had perfect vision, in hopes that I might be able to see even better.  No luck, but the orange dot was becoming more and more of something recognizable.

"Is that Tails?"

The orange dot dove straight down.  Within two seconds, I could tell that it was definitely Tails.  And he wasn't slowing down.  I could hear him screaming.

"AAH!  Catch meeeeeeee!"

I turned to Knuckles.  "But he can fly – "

Knuckles shot straight up and flew to grab Tails.  A few seconds later, the two of them were safely on the ground.  Tails was all shaken up.

"Eggman...he...he...he cuffed my tails together and shoved me over the edge!"  The fox turned around to show us.  A metal band was wrapped around both his tails.  Knuckles ripped it off easily.  Tails fell at the echidna's feet.

"Thankyouthankyouthankyou!"

"Hey!"  I stepped forward.  "What's going on with Sonic and Amy?"

"Oh, them?"  Tails sat up on his knees.  "I don't know where they are, but I don't think they've been caught.  The best we can hope for is to wait for the Egg Carrier to land."

"But where the hell are they gonna land?"  I held my head.  "I don't think we're in Sonic Adventure 1 anymore."

"Oh, and about that," said Tails, standing up.  "I've given the video game theory some thought, and I've come to the conclusion that actual worlds extend far beyond the video games they were made from.  And I've also thought that, if this world is based off of a video game, then there are bound to be others."

"But what if the video games are based off of the worlds?" I asked.

"I don't think that's possible," Tails said, "because we would have certainly heard about real-world people breaking into our world, or the other way around, because they would have to know of our world first to make a game out of it.  As far as we know, you're the very first immigrant, Shooter."

"Whoa.  Immigrant?  Hey, I'm not moving here, fox."

"But you could end up staying here for quite some time, unless we figure out a way to induce a portal back to your world."

"Or we could just steal Eggman's system," I suggested.

Silence.

"That's a _great_ idea!" Knuckles exploded.

Chapter Eight

A short while later and the three of us were standing in the electronics district's train station, waiting for the next arrival.  I had been to Japan before, so I knew how the train system worked.  Tails pointed to a machine that resembled an ATM.

"That's where we buy tickets.  I'll pay, if you need me to."

I sighed.  "Tails, I've been to Japan before; I told you already.  Japanese train stations are nothing new to me.  Oh, wait..."  I frowned in thought.  "Are we even _in _Japan?"

Tails gave me a smug look and spouted off a sentence completely in Japanese.  I stood there, amazed.

"WHOA, dude!  You can speak Japanese?  Wait – Of _course_ you can speak Japanese!  You were made in Japan!  The game was made in Japan!  We're in Japan!  I'm BACK!"  I dropped to my knees and worshipped the two-story ceiling that covered the whole outside train station.  "Ha HA!  I'm BACK!"

"Whoa, Shoe, calm down," said Knuckles, quietly.  "What's all this talk about being 'back'?"

"I just said a minute ago that I had been to Japan before.  That trip was almost a year ago, and I've been begging my dad to take me back every day since.  But this..."  I stood up and held my arms out.  "_This_ is even better!  Japan _and_ one of my favorite video games of all time – _combined_!"

My voice echoed, but the crowded train station paid no attention.  All the people just kept on pressing towards their destination, oblivious to my outburst.  It was already pretty noisy.

"Hey, uh, the train's here."  Tails pointed over to the subway-like tracks.  "We need tickets."

"Duh?"  I knocked on his head.  "We don't need tickets.  We ride on the top."

Tails looked worried.  "Of the train?"

"Why not?" interjected Knuckles.  "It might not be as easy as riding inside, but it'll damn well be a lot more exciting."

"Point taken."  The fox motored his twin tails and rose off the floor.  "Let's hurry; it's gonna leave in a few seconds."

Knuckles and I ran and followed Tails, jumping up and landing on the roof of one of the connected train cars.  Surprisingly, none of the people in the station cared.

The train started off smoothly, just like Japanese trains were always supposed to.  It was an incredibly jolt-free ride, so we had no problem staying put.  That is, until the train got up to speed.

The wind knocked Tails and me down, but Knuckles stayed standing, shielding his eyes with one hand, leaning into the wind.  The city of Station Square zoomed by all around us as the train zipped along on suspended tracks.  A few minutes later, we hit a tunnel and disappeared into darkness, except for dim lighting dotted along the low ceiling.  Knuckles was still standing up.

 All of a sudden, he dove and hit the metal train roof.  "Get down!  NOW!"

Tails and I ducked, and just in time.  A lighted sign was hanging down from the concrete ceiling of the tunnel.  It whooshed by right over our heads.

"Crap, that was close!"  I lifted my head up to see where we were going.  "Y'all, there's another one coming!"

We all pressed ourselves flat as the sign flew by.  I could have sworn that we were going about a hundred miles per hour.  The train started curving to the right.  All three of us slid dangerously close to the left edge of the roof.  I caught a glimpse of the tracks below and shuddered, clambering back to the center of the train.

"No, Shoe!  Stay on the left!"

"Huh?"

"STAY ON THE LEFT!!!"

I looked up just in time to see a procession of arrow signs pointing to the right.  I slammed myself flat and held my breath.  One by one, they rushed by directly over my back.  Each one brushed my head spikes.

Then the whole place was flooded with blinding light.  Well, actually, it only seemed that way because my eyes were still adjusted to the darkness of the tunnel.  The train had emerged out into broad daylight onto a track suspended high above the main Mystic Ruins area from Sonic Adventure 1.  There was the lake, the cave, and the workshop just as it was in the game.  Cool.

The train slowed gently to a stop.  As soon as it quit moving, the three of us jumped down, plummeting the thirty-foot distance to the ground from the train station.  It was much faster than using the spiraling bamboo ramp.

I hit the dirt and dropped to my knees.  "God, that was exciting."

"Don't sit down now; we've gotta go break into Eggman's place."  Tails nudged me with his shoe.  "Remember?"

"Yeah, I remember."  I got up.  "I just need a little time to digest recent events."

With that, the three of us took off for the small railway cart by the lake that would take us to the forest maze.

Chapter Nine

We stepped out onto a ledge, way, _way_ up high over a vast forest.  Right in the middle of the place, not too far off, was a big Aztec-style pyramid.  Far away, in the distance, was a small city.  I pointed directly at it.  "That's where we need to go?"

"Uh huh.  Grab on."  Tails floated upwards and I took hold of his ankles.  We flew all the way across the huge area, with Knuckles gliding behind.  The three of us landed right in front of the horizontal shaft entrance to the wannabe city.

Knuckles stepped up to the little square car at the end of the tunnel.  The doors slid open automatically, and we all stepped in.  It took off, zooming through the chute.  Before long, the doors opened again, revealing a big room with equipment and control panels lining the walls.  In the middle of the place, there was a second level down below, accessible by stairs.  I walked out first.

"Hey, I know this place.  I hate this place."

"Why?" asked Tails.

"It's too small for the in-game camera to work properly."

"_That's_ why?"  Tails crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow.

"Hey, the camera makes or breaks games.  In my opinion, anyway.  And the music.  Gotta have cool music.  Graphics aren't _too_ much of an issue, but they certainly help the overall quality..."

"Shoe, you're getting carried away," said Knuckles.

I turned to face him.  "What's with 'Shoe' all of a sudden?"

"I dunno."  He looked at the ceiling.  "Sounds okay to me.  If Knuckles must be Knux, and Miles must be Tails, and Maurice must be Sonic, then Shooter must be Shoe."

"HANG ON!!!"  I jumped in his face.  "_How_ the _hell_ did you know his name was Maurice!?"

Knux shrugged.  "All his close friends know it – " 

"This is friggin' Sonic Adventure 1!"

"So...?"

"The Sonic _comic_ made that name!  It's an entirely different universe!"

"Sonic has a comic book, too!?"

"YES!!!  ...And you do, too, but they stopped printing it, so now it's a back-up story at the end of the Sonic comics." 

"WHAT!?!?"

I could tell that Knuckles was getting really pissed off about the whole "Sonic" thing, but I still needed answers.  Maurice was indeed Sonic's real name, but that fact was limited only to the Sonic comic.  Come to think of it, why had there been a robotisizer on the Egg Carrier?  Robotisizers were only supposed to be in classic Sonic universes, not the modern 3-dimensional games.  This whole thing was getting more and more confusing.

"Hey," I asked, "Do y'all know anyone by the name of Sally Acorn?"

I got two blank looks.  "Apparently not," I said.  "I'm just trying to figure out why some elements are bleeding into each other and others aren't."

"Ooh, I just thought of something," said Tails.  "A comic book is just printed paper.  Video games are sprites moving around in an actual environment.  Therefore, there couldn't possibly be a world pertaining to the comic.  But, if the people who created this video game knew of Sonic's real name, then it's possible that their knowledge was passed on to us through programming."

"Then why don't y'all know about Sally Acorn?"

"What universe is she from?"

"The original Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon.  SatAM."

Knuckles exploded.  "So now he has a cartoon, too!?"

"He's got three of 'em, dude," I said, "But don't fret, 'cause you're in one of 'em."

"Only one!?"

"Would you shut up?"  Tails gave the echidna an impatient look.  "As I was saying...This 'Sally' person is from the cartoon.  Is the cartoon related to this video game in any way?"

"Nope.  Except for the robotisizer part."

"We'll get to that later.  Now, is the comic book related to this game in any way?"

"Yeah.  They're both set in Station Square.  But, also, Sally's in the comic as well as the cartoon."

"Is Sally a standard character in all the Sonic universes?"

"Not at all."

"Are robotisizers standards?"

"Yeah, pretty much.  They're in everything except the Sonic Adventure games."

"Ah, but think again," said Tails, smiling.  "You know about those annoying robotic monkeys, right?"

"Kikis?"

"Exactly.  How do you suppose they were created?"

"Uh, Eggman could have built them."

"But wouldn't it be faster to robotisize real monkeys?"

"I guess so."

"You're catching on."  Tails started to pace.  He was going into 'super-genius' mode.  "Robotisizers are obviously standards, but Sally isn't.  Now, as for Sonic's real name...Is that a standard?"

"No...at least, I don't think so," I said.  "I really have no idea if the Sonic comic made it up or if they got it from somewhere."

Knuckles suddenly snapped.  "Listen, both of you, you're giving me a headache.  Why can't we just leave it at the fact that different universes bleed sometimes?  Even though Sonic's real name is supposed to be only in the comic, couldn't you just leave it a mystery?  I don't understand why you two have to explore every single detail and iron out every single question known to Earth.  And if you do have to, please do it later."

I adjusted my glasses.  "But the thing is, the comic book can't possibly _be_ a world of its own because it's just printed paper, like Tails said."

"Then Sonic's real name has to be in at least one of the video games," said Knux.  "Leave it at that.  _Please_ leave it at that."

"Whatever."  I turned and walked away.  Against the right wall, there was a glass pillar filled with clear green liquid.  Metal Sonic was suspended inside.  I tapped on it.

All of a sudden, the PA system went off.  "What do you think you're _doing_!?  Get your hands off of Metal!  He's fragile right now!"  It was Dr. Robotnik, of course.

All three of us were wildly looking around, searching for speakers in the ceiling.  I decided to answer Eggman over the PA.  "Hey, I just touched it, nothing more."

"I don't care!  Just don't touch anything else!  I'll be out in a second."

"Hey, wait!" I yelled.  "Where are the surveillance cameras?"

"They're hidden."  The PA went dead.  There was a moment of silence.

I looked around cautiously.  "...I feel so exposed..."

"No time to lose!" said Tails.  "We need to find the cameras!"

"I believe that'd be my job," said Knuckles.  He then became very quiet.  Suddenly, he turned, jumped, and punched a camera that had been monitoring us from above the doorway we had just come in from.  He stood still again.  Then he jumped, glided, and hit the far wall, destroying a camera disguised as a light fixture.  Knuckles then dropped down to the level below, where he annihilated another camera hidden in the corner of the floor.  The red echidna ran back up the stairs, mission completed.

"Only three?" asked Tails.  "Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure!" Knuckles snapped.  "I'm an expert at finding stuff."  He crossed his arms and turned away.  "Huh...no one doubts me and gets away with it..." 

All of a sudden, a bunch of strobe lights lit up the lower area at once.  A circular trapdoor fell from the center of the floor, and then rose back up with Eggman standing on it.  The three of us dropped down to meet him.

"'Sup?" I said, casually.

Eggman's mustache drooped in surprise.  "Huh?"

"What's up?" I translated.

"Oh."  He stroked his chin.  "I noticed that Knuckles destroyed all of my surveillance cameras.

"Took you long enough."  Knuckles crossed his arms.  "I thought you'd get here sooner."

"Shut up.  Don't try to act better than I am, because you're not, and you know it."

I stepped forward.  "Hey, y'all, why not just drop this for now and go have a pizza?"

I got three stares for the umpteenth time.

"No!"  Tails literally put his foot down.  "We came here to carry out a mission, and we're not backing off now."

"Whoa, it was just a joke."  I made an airy motion with my hands.  "Lighten up, will you?"

"Hear me.  We are on a mission."

Suddenly having a moment of inspiration, I struck a different pose with each phrase.  "I was on a mission, and I was wishin', that my momma was in the kitchen, makin' chicken, finger lickin'!"

I swear, if stares could be measured on a blankness scale of one to ten, these guys would be at a fourteen.  I don't think they had ever been exposed to my kind of humor before.  Nevertheless, I was determined to get them to quit staring and start laughing.  Okay, so the chicken thing was stupid...

"Why are all these lights on?" I asked, wanting to break the sudden silence.

"For show," Robotnik answered, "so you would notice I was entering the scene."

"Huh."  Knuckles shuffled his feet.  "It worked."

"Oh, hey, where are Sonic and Amy?" I asked.

"Who?  Oh, them?  They're out cold, under heavy surveillance."  Eggman grinned.  "They're not going anywhere."

"Damn.  Where'd you put them?"

"Do you think I'm just going to _give_ that information to you?" Eggman snapped.  "Well, you're right.  But only after you earn the info."

"By doing what?" Knuckles asked, annoyed.

"I was getting to that!"  Eggman composed himself and started talking again.  "I will only tell you where they are after the three of you beat me to the finish line of Speed Highway."

My eyes lit up.  "Speed Highway?  Whoa!  That's one of my favorite levels of all time!  And oh, Eggman, don't think it'll be easy outrunning us, because I know a bunch of shortcuts that Sonic Team didn't even intend to program in to the game."

"Sonic Team?"

I slapped my own face and left my hand there.  "Crap!  I don't wanna explain it again!"  I took my hand away from my face and sighed.  "But I will.  Okay, so you already know that there are tons and tons of other worlds, right?  Right.  Ever wonder how they all got to existing?  The real world, mine, created them.  Any 2d or 3d environment is automatically defined as an enterable world.  So, using that theory, this world is the game Sonic Adventure 1, created by Sonic Team, a branch of Sega, which is a huge video game company."  I took a breath.  "So, this means that there are like thirty different Sonics kicking each of your thirty different asses in each of the thirty different Sonic the Hedgehog worlds."

Tails started giggling uncontrollably.  Maybe my humor did have an effect, after all.

"Does this mean that I can just start up this game, hack into its files and delete Sonic and the rest of you?"  Eggman stood there, pondering.

Tails stepped forward.  "No.  I believe that once a game is officially completed, the world stemming off of it is severed from the original data, becoming a freestanding universe.  Therefore, there is no way to tamper with the data once the game is done."

As Robotnik and Tails continued to debate, I stepped back and thought about the whole thing.  Worlds were only alterable when under construction, and after that, they were untouchable?  It didn't make sense to me.  I bet it was possible to hack into a world and change stuff even long after the game was complete.  It would be senseless to permanently freeze a world's settings and attributes.  The problem, though, was finding the original data, not just a copy.

Aw, to hell with it.  We'd never figure it all out any time soon.

"Aw, to hell with it!" I said suddenly.  "We'll never figure it out any time soon!"

Chapter Ten

I was fuming.  "Right now, we just need to figure out how to get me home; that's why we came here to bug the eggman!"

Eggman turned to face me.  "I have no intention of letting you go freely."

"Why!?"

"Oh, shut up, you know why.  It'd ruin my reputation.  Now let's quit this petty arguing and get some _real_ business going!"  At that moment, Eggman backed up and hit a big red button on the control panel behind him.  A siren went off and the whole place was bathed in red light.  I pointed up to the ceiling.  "Hey, if you got a disco ball in here, this red light would be stylin'."

At that moment, some E-100 series robots came out of door that led to the Final Egg stage.  There were about six or seven, and they didn't look too difficult.

Every single one raised its laser and aimed at us all.  Robotnik exploded.

"NO!  Don't shoot me; shoot the furries!  And do it down on the second level so you won't destroy anything in the process – " 

Too late.  Thinking fast, I jumped on the head of E-112 just to cause some mayhem.  The green robot started flailing, yanking itself here and there to try to shake me off.  It started firing, spraying tiny missiles everywhere.  Just our luck, several of them hit and destroyed the control panels dotted around the room.

Just as Robotnik was starting to throw a fit and the other three of us were starting to celebrate, a missile hit Metal Sonic's pillar.  The glass shattered and clear green liquid gushed out.  Metal Sonic collapsed, splashing in the green stuff, utterly lifeless.  Knuckles was about to go stomp his head in when the metal hedgehog got up on its hands and knees rather dramatically.

"Uh oh."  Tails took a step back.

I didn't know about the others, but I was ready for some action.  I stood in front of Knuckles and Tails while Robotnik ran off to go hide somewhere.

"Wha – Hey!  Get back here!"  I gave chase to Eggman.  "Where do you think you're going!?"

At that moment, Robotnik disappeared inside the door to Final Egg.

I turned quickly back to Tails and Knuckles, still watching Metal Sonic come to life.  "Crap!  I hate Final Egg!"

Knuckles ran over immediately, shoving past me straight into Final Egg.  "You and Tails take care of Metal!"  The door slammed shut and I ran back to Tails.

Metal was surrounded in sparks, slowly standing up.  I nudged Tails with my elbow.  "Boy, this is dramatic."

"Be quiet!  You'll ruin the moment," he replied, still watching Metal.

The fake hedgehog's eyes lit up red and he stood up straight, then he hovered up off of the floor, motionless.  Green liquid rippled over the floor, away from Metal.

He attacked.  Metal Sonic suddenly blasted forward, through the E-100 robots, and straight into Tails and me.  All three of us crashed against the door behind us in a jumble.  It was a surprising attack, but neither of us was hurt, despite the fact that all of the E-100 series robots had been completely destroyed.  Tails and I jumped up and dropped down to the second level to have some more room to fight.  Metal Sonic shot down like a rocket after us, hitting and mangling the railing on the way.  A twisted piece of the metal handrail fell down, narrowly missing my head.  I did a side jump as Metal Sonic smashed into the floor, trailing sparks.

"Shoe, I don't think his sight programming is in!" yelled Tails over the noise of the siren and crackling electricity.  "But all of his other senses are!  He still can track our heat and movement!" he continued.

"Well, sheesh, it must not be that accurate, because – well, look at him!"  I indicated the crackling metal hedgehog still embedded in the floor.

"He can hear you, too!"

"Can he understand insults?"

"Don't take a chance!"

Metal Sonic rose straight up out of the floor, bringing with him part of the metal floor.  It stayed bent up where the hedgehog had emerged.  Sparks were flying everywhere, and the siren was still going.  The whole place was covered in red light, and the strobe lights were flickering on and off eerily.  Several control panels had been destroyed, which probably accounted for the electricity failure.

We heard a small explosion from the main level and looked up, only to cover our heads as a shower of sparks and debris rained down.  Metal Sonic was getting confused as to where we were, what with all the motion and heat everywhere else.  He took a chance, suddenly charging Tails out of luck.  Tails noticed right before he was smashed into the wall.

I screamed and covered my mouth.  A sudden blast of energy erupted out of the back of Metal Sonic, forcing him even harder into the wall.  I snapped and ran over, successfully avoiding another falling piece of the railing from above.  I took hold of Metal and pulled, but to no avail.  Remembering that he would respond to heat, I grabbed the fallen rail and held the end in the midst of Metal's energy, letting it get red-hot.  It turned red quickly, faster than I thought it would.  After it was almost white, I waved it around in the air, trying to get the fake hedgehog's attention, close to tears.  I wasn't about to let Tails get killed, if it was even possible.

"Hey, you bastard!"  I twirled around with the red-hot pipe.  "Get out of there!  Stop it!"  I ran forward and smashed the piece of railing into Metal Sonic's head.  It made a huge dent, and was partially embedded.  All of a sudden, Metal's rocket reversed, blasting him backwards out of the wall, throwing me back and sending the pipe flying.

Tails unexpectedly fell out of the mangled hole in the wall, beaten up pretty badly.  He wasn't seriously hurt at all, though, miraculously.

"TAILS!!!"  My jaw almost hit the floor.  "You're okay!"

"Boy, am I itchy..."

"What?"

"There's nothing but insulation back in there.  I'm okay."

Metal charged again, this time for me.  I jumped out of the way and he slammed into the wall.  I took the chance and homing-attacked the back of him over and over until he started to move again.  But this time, when Metal Sonic's rocket started up, flames erupted from within and he fell to the ground, twitching with fire, electricity, and sparks.  I picked up another piece of broken railing and tossed it to Tails.

"You finish him off!"

"Why?"

"I can't do it!"

"But I'll get electrocuted!"  Tails touched his own forehead in confusion, then he appeared to have an idea.  "Go get up there and splash some of that green water back down!"

I immediately bounced up the stairs and landed in the middle of the clear green liquid.  I leaned down and used my hands to send it spilling down where Tails and Metal were.

"That's enough!" the fox yelled.

I jumped back down.  Tails had found a bucket and had caught most of the liquid I spilled.  He poured it over Metal, and the sizzling electricity ceased almost instantly.  Then Tails grabbed the pipe and smashed Metal's head in.  I turned away as he delivered another blow to finish off the metal imposter of a hedgehog.

Tails dropped the pipe and walked over to me.  "What's wrong?  I thought you were the toughest girl alive!"

"Congratulations, Holmes.  You've found my weakness."

"What?"

"I hate to see things die."  I said.  "I thought you were as good as dead back there when you got rammed into the wall."

"Aw.  Well, I'm okay now, obviously."

"Well, I know that, but still, it just scared me."

"But...Metal Sonic is a robot."

"Still, dude."

"You contributed."

"I mean ultimately destroyed.  I only attacked."

"Oh..."  Tails turned away and sighed.  "Let's go."

"Where?  Knuckles is most likely out of Final Egg by now, but I have no idea of the location of where the stage ends up."

"Ooh."

At that moment, Knuckles, Sonic, and Amy burst in through the main door up on the first level.

"Shoe?  Tails?  You here?"

"Down here!" Tails yelled.  All three of them jumped down to meet us amid the debris and green water on the floor.

"Where's Robotnik?" I asked.

"He got away," Knuckles answered.  "Is something wrong?"  He cocked his head to one side and gave me a peculiar look.

I realized that I had been staring at my boots.  My head snapped up and I blinked.  "Huh?  Oh.  I'm okay."

"You don't look okay."  Sonic stepped forward and gave me the same peculiar look.

"It just seems so unreal.  All this, I mean."  I looked at the destruction around us.  Smoke was covering the ceiling, and the railing and lower walls were mangled.  The strobe lights were barely flickering on, and the whole place was still covered in red light.  The siren had stopped sometime during the fight, but the sound of sparks shooting off from the busted control panels still seemed deafening.

"Well, stuff is bound to get broken when you're in a battle," said Sonic.  He kicked a hanging piece of the mangled metal wall and it broke off.

Amy was looking around in amazement at all the obliteration surrounding the area.  Then she noticed the destroyed metal hedgehog in the middle of the floor.  "You two took out Metal by yourselves?"

Tails and I nodded sheepishly.  Sonic went over to Tails and gave him a pat on the back.  "I'm proud of you," he said.  Tails smiled like I'd never seen him smile.

"Hey," said Knuckles.  "Good job."  I looked in his direction.  He came over with a small smile and offered his hand.  I took it, expecting a handshake, but he swept me into a full-scale hug.

"WAUGH!!!"  I shot straight up and literally hit the ceiling, then fell back down on my ass, dumbfounded.  I got up and stood there in front of Knuckles.  "Remember when I said I was taken?" I said angrily.

He got embarrassed.  "Yeah..."

Chapter Eleven

The five of us were sitting patiently, waiting for the train to arrive at its destination in Station Square.  We had chosen to ride inside this time, so as to avoid any accidental decapitations from riding on top.  I sank into the heated seat, mentally and physically exhausted.  I think I actually dozed off once or twice on the way.

Amy gently shook me into consciousness.  "Hey, we're here," she said.

I sat up straight, rubbing my eyes.  Then I slid out of my seat and followed the other four all the way out of the train station onto the sidewalk outside.  We had come back to the completely new part of Station Square where Knuckles and I had first met.  It was getting close to evening, so Sonic suggested we all spend the night at his place.

"Where do you live?" I asked.  I had always wondered.

"In an apartment, duh.  Over there."  Sonic pointed down the street a little ways, then led us all there.

The elevator doors opened and the five of us stepped out into the hallway.  Sonic's place was the fourth door on the left.  He opened the door with a key and let us all in.

It was a nice place, really.  The layout kind of reminded me of Jerry Seinfeld's apartment.  There was a desktop computer over against the far wall.  A pastel orange leather couch was in front of a nice-sized TV on the left wall, and the open kitchen was directly to the left of the front door, with a bar separating it from the living area.  Directly to the right was a door leading to the bedroom.  The bathroom was farther ahead, connected to both the living area and the bedroom by two separate doors.

I flopped on the couch, dead tired.  Sonic went into the kitchen.  He opened up the fridge.

"Hey, what'll it be for dinner?  I've got chilidogs, cheese chilidogs, and bean chilidogs."

I sat up and gave him a really, really bored look.  He took the hint and chose stir-fried garlic chicken instead.  It was a hit.  After all, I'd had chilidogs back at home in the real world only the day before.

Later, when everyone was lounging around in the living area, we passed around the remote control.  I was having fun, but I wasn't getting as much out of the TV as the others because all the shows were completely in Japanese.  Well, luckily, all except one of the news stations, which was in good ol' English.

I kicked off my boots and stretched out on the couch along with Tails.  Sonic, Knuckles, and Amy were on the floor amid an assortment of pillows.  Before long, I was close to sleep, so I sat up and inquired where.

"Oh."  Sonic stood up and turned off the TV, yawning.  "I guess Tails and Knux can take the couch and I'll sleep on the floor.  Girls, you can have the bed."

"Cool," I said, "but what about our clothes?  It's terribly uncomfortable to sleep in day clothes."

"I can imagine."  Sonic went to the bedroom closet and pulled out two long nightshirts.  He tossed one each to Amy and me.  I stared at the sky blue shirts.  Sonic never wore clothing, unless it was freezing cold.  He noticed me standing there and laughed.

"I've hosted people before, Shoe."

"Oh."

Amy and I changed separately in the bathroom, while the other three settled down out in the living room.  We climbed in the double bed and I turned out the lamp on the left bedside table.  I fell asleep before my head hit the pillow.

Chapter Twelve

I woke up while Sonic was making breakfast.  Amy was already up and around, but Tails and Knuckles were still asleep on the couch.  I unenthusiastically rolled out of bed and dragged myself to the kitchen bar.

"What's wrong, Shoe?" Sonic asked, turning on the stove.  "Not a morning person?"

"Bluh."  I glanced at the bacon-to-be in the skillet and went over to the computer.  I logged on to the Internet and absent-mindedly entered teamartail.com to check my email.  Right when I hit the enter key, I remembered that this was an entirely different universe, and the Internet probably wasn't even remotely similar to the one back in the real world.  I expected an error to come up on the screen, but the teamartail home page loaded like always.  I was astounded.  If the Internet was shared between worlds, then that meant that phone lines were shared, also!  Maybe, before I went home, I could exchange phone numbers with everyone.  That would be cool.

I found exactly one new message amid several junk emails.  It was from a friend of mine back home name Dugan.

Hey, Hillary – 

_What's going on?  I've got cool news.  Tilt Arcade got a new DDR machine, and it rocks!  Maybe I'll finally get off of light mode.  :P  You're on standard, right?  Anyway, Brittany and I already went and checked it out.  It's definitely cool.  What's new with you?_

_-Dugan_

I clicked on 'reply' and began the message back.

Dugan! 

_Finally!  That arcade needed one.  As for what's new with me?  Whoa.  I've found out some stuff that would make your head fly off if I told you.  Let me put it this way:  If you found out that Digimon was real, what would you do?_

_~Hillary_

"Hey!  Get over here and eat!  There's bacon, eggs, and pancakes!"

I clicked on 'send', logged off, and ran over to the kitchen.  The food looked excellent.  I grabbed a plate and served myself buffet-style.  Truly American.

Much later, the five of us were all outside, headed for the train station again.  We were going to the part of Station Square directly from Sonic Adventure.  Once there, we would board a small boat and ride a ways over the water to the Egg Carrier, which would hopefully be sitting out in the open where I expected.

I was right.  The Egg Carrier was a short distance away that would take less than five minutes by motorboat.  Just as it was in the game, there was a small wooden boat complete with a motor docked at the edge of the sidewalk in the water.  All five of us boarded, and in no time, we were there on the ship itself.

Eggman was there to meet us, alone.  He was just kind of standing there, like he had been waiting for us.  As a matter of fact, he probably _had_ been standing there waiting for us.  He might have seen us coming on that little wooden skiff.

I walked forward without fear.  Out of nowhere, a laser made a small explosion at my feet.  Jumping back, I looked wildly around to figure out where it came from.  Then I noticed that one of the big defensive laser guns aboard the ship was smoking.

"Ha!" Robotnik laughed.  "You're so stupid!  You can't touch me.  Anyway, as I was saying about the interworld system, I've decided to play fair.  Since I've always been unfair in the past and lost, and you all have been fair and won, I think I'm going to try your little game.  We'll take a small boat back to Station Square, and we'll proceed from there."

Silence.

"Whoa," I finally said.  "This is history in the making.  Hey, let's do this."

"Hang on!"  Sonic stepped forward.  "You can never trust Eggman."

"Naw, we can take anything he throws at us."  I winked.

"I'm not going to 'throw' anything at you, so stop worrying."  Eggman led us all to a nice speedboat ready at the edge of the Egg Carrier's deck.  As soon as the six of us were in, it gently lowered down to rest in the water.  Eggman started the motor and we shot towards the concrete shore.

Speed Highway was inside a garage on the edge of the street.  Robotnik's little eggmobile was already there.  He hopped in and hovered into one of the two elevators.  The other five of us boarded the other one.  The doors closed, we rose up, and they opened again, revealing Speed Highway in all its glory.

We stepped out into a short tunnel that led out into the stage, where the roads twisted and turned all around, completely defying the laws of physics.  Skyscrapers were cleverly placed around the roads, extending down into nothingness.  The sky made it appear to be night.  It was an awesome city.  I hope you, reader, have played Sonic Adventure, because I can't describe Speed Highway as cool as it really is.

Anyway, I was still busy being awestruck when the music for the stage came on, booming from every direction.  Electric guitar.  Tons of bass.  Again, I hope you've played the game or heard the song, because it's cooler than what I can say here.

Eggman revved up his eggmobile.  "Alright.  No one takes any shortcuts that weren't intended to be in the game."  He glared right at me.  "That means that we stay on the road, whichever one we choose.  Understand?"

"Yes, sir," I said.

All six of us took off down the street.  And I mean literally down.  As soon as we were out of the tunnel, the road took almost a 45-degree angle down.  I was already high on adrenaline, so I wasn't slowing anytime soon.  I pulled ahead of everyone and reached the bottom, immediately going back up in a roller-coaster-style loop.

We progressed through the stage, me and Sonic in the lead, Eggman behind us, Tails next, and Knuckles and Amy lagging behind.  The road suddenly turned to the side, but we all stayed put, running at a right angle to gravity.  We shot out onto the side of a building and continued running.  Amy, Knuckles, and Eggman fell down to the street below, but the other three of us continued running onto another road up high that came off of the side of the building.  Now that Eggman was down on the long road, we could continue the short way without fear.

About a minute and a half later, the first part of the stage was finished.  Instead of crashing through a glass window like in the game, though, there was a dead end.  We had no choice but to wait there for Eggman, Amy, and Knuckles.

Chapter Thirteen

It was another twenty seconds before they showed up.  Eggman was pissed.

"I can't believe it!" he fumed.  "I try every way I know of to beat you all, but I fail, time and time again!  What's wrong with me!?  I'm a genius!  This shouldn't happen!"

"It's about time you realized that," I said, good-naturedly.  Eggman glared at me again.

"Can we get out of here and settle this in a real fight?" Sonic asked, crossing his arms.  "We need to decide on something that none of us has a definite strength in.

I had the ultimate idea.  "A video game!"

"Huh?" said Amy.

"A video game.  We vote on a game, like Sonic Shuffle or Mario Party or something.  If we win, we get the interworld system, and if we lose, we don't.  Simple."

"But that's your strength," Tails stated.

"I haven't played either one of those," I said.  "Let's go rent a system out and play like there's no tomorrow."

"So, your life as you know it is going to hang on a video game score?" Sonic said.

"Pretty much."

"So be it!"  Without warning, Eggman hit a button in his eggmobile and transported us all back to the Egg Carrier, underneath the deck in the main area where he and I first met.

Robotnik hopped out of his little hovercraft and went over to the big screen.  He brought up Internet Explorer.  "Where can we get this game that you're talking about?"

"Oh, man, you're gonna need an emulator, and then you'll have to search for a decent rom.  Plus, it's nearly impossible for four players to use one keyboard simultaneously.  The Internet is not the place to look.  I suggest we go rent or buy a Dreamcast or Gamecube or whatever.  Oh, wait, Gamecube is from Nintendo, and they wouldn't have that here in this world, right..."

Tails cut me off.  "To avoid the needless spending of money, I can just tap into the interworld system and yank one out of a store in the real world.  That is, if Eggman will permit me to use it."

Eggman stroked his moustache.  "Permission granted.  Commence immediately."

Tails sat down at the huge control panel and brought up three windows onscreen.  The first one displayed the insanely long list of different worlds, and the second showed a form.  The third was totally black.  Tails selected the real world from the list and then clicked on the first text box of the form.  "Country...USA, right?"

"Yeah.  And then Texas."

"And the city?"

I told him.

"Good," he said.  "Now what are we specifically looking for?"

"How about...uh...Nintendo Gamecube?  I kind of changed my mind about Sonic Shuffle; no offense."

"That's alright."  Tails typed it in and exactly one hundred and four items came up.  He clicked on the first one and the black window changed to a live view of the Gamecube, sitting underneath someone's TV.

"Ooh, that one's taken."  Tails moved down the list, finding more and more used ones, until he came to a cube sitting on a store shelf, brand-new.

"Wouldn't this be stealing?" asked Amy.

"Not if we make a copy.  Let's make a copy, shall we?"  Tails right-clicked on the Gamecube and selected "copy".  Right away, a blue and black portal appeared in front of us all and spit out a perfect replica of the one from the store.

I fell on my knees.  "WOO!  I get first player!"  I ripped the box open and discovered that the Gamecube had miraculously been packaged with a free copy of Metroid: Prime inside.  Whoa.

"Hey, Tails, can I keep this?"

"I don't care."  He didn't look away from the big screen.

"Uh, cool.  Now search for Super Smash Brothers Melee."

He repeated the whole process to look for the game, four wireless controllers, and a memory card.  In just five minutes, we were all set.  I plugged the cube into the big screen and tossed a controller to Eggman.

"What about everyone else?" asked Knuckles.

"It wouldn't be fair to have 3-on-1, so I'm challenging Eggman on my own.  Trust me."  I smiled.

"Have you played this game before?" Sonic asked suspiciously.

I suddenly felt sheepish.  "We can set a handicap..."

Eggman grabbed the second player controller.  "Don't worry about that.  You'd be surprised at how good I am at this kind of thing."

I turned the Gamecube on.  "Alright, y'all, these are all Nintendo characters, so don't get ticked off."

Sonic:  "Hmph." 

"Oh, please wait a moment, I need to use the lavatory."  Eggman ran off.  The five of us kind of looked at each other and shrugged.  Before long, the eggman was back.  He dropped on his butt and picked up the controller, sitting cross-legged.  I joined him.  Tails had already hacked into the game and unlocked everything, so we could use whatever characters we wanted.  I chose Dr. Mario, and Robotnik picked Kirby.  The level chosen was Pokémon Stadium.  The match started.

Kirby jumped and tried to smash my head in, but I somersaulted out of the way and shot a barrage of medicine capsules at him.

 "Yes!  Fly, my Viagra pills of death!"

I was about to do a one-two punch, but Kirby evaded, grabbed me, and tossed me up in the air, following with another attack from beneath that sent me flying.  Thinking quickly, I used my altitude to deliver a round of kicks to Kirby's head from above.  I landed, got punched in the stomach, and did that coin move, sending Kirby up into the air.  He started floating, successfully avoiding another attack from underneath.

The stage's platforms began to transform.  I was trapped on the far left edge of the arena, behind a wooden tree that had popped up from the ground.  There was no possible way of getting back.  I fell.

"_Game!_"  The announcer ended the match as Dr. Mario went off screen.

I threw down my controller and jumped up, furious.  "No way!  That's not kosher, dude!  Let's make it two out of three!"

"Fine."

We selected characters again.  I picked Young Link, and Eggman chose Pikachu.  Crap.  If Eggman was any good with Pikachu, I'd be toast.  Pikachu was one of the best aerial attackers in the game.  Oh, well.

This time we picked the original Super Mario Brothers stage.  The match started.  I immediately threw a bomb at Pikachu, but he detonated it in the air with a Thunder Jolt.  I then threw my boomerang and let loose a fire arrow.  Both hit their target.  Pikachu sent another Thunder Jolt along the ground, but I easily jumped up and did the sword plant right on top of the yellow mouse pokémon.  Pikachu did Thunder right before I hit him and gave me a hell of a shock.  I ran away and took out another bomb.

Just then, a pair of hard metal hands slammed down on my shoulders, and I dropped the controller out of surprise.  The bomb exploded in Young Link's face.  I tried to whip around to see what was going on, but the hands were way too strong.  If I squirmed, they locked down tighter.  My shoulders were already beginning to ache.

I was lifted straight up off the ground, and before I could react, a sort of metal band was clamped around me, locking my arms to my sides.  There was no way I could move.  I thrashed uselessly.

The robot that had picked me up turned around, awaiting orders from Eggman.  He set down his controller, turned the Gamecube off, and stood up.  He got right in my face.

"You seem to have forgotten that one should never trust the enemy," said Robotnik.  A minty fresh scent wafted into my face.

"As much as I love the smell of your breath, I would really appreciate it if you would back away so we're not inhaling each other's carbon dioxide."

Eggman's moustache wilted as he suddenly lost his ego for a second.  He abruptly took a step back and composed himself for another try.  "I said that one should never trust the enemy."

"I hear ya."

Eggman was fuming.  "Is that all you have to say?"

"Not quite."

"Well??"

I actually didn't have anything at all to spout off.  I just wanted to sound cool.  But, alas, my attempt had backfired, so I had to make do with whatever popped into my mind next.

"Skip to my Lou, my darling!"

It became very, very quiet.  Then Eggman grimaced and pointed to a doorway to the right of the big screen.  "Zero-two, take the hedgehog girl to the robotisization room."

I cracked up laughing.  I knew I shouldn't have, but it struck me as hilarious that I was to be subjected to the robotisizer, of all things.

Suddenly, in mid-laugh, I noticed that everyone else was gone.  It was just 02, Eggman, and me.  I abruptly became very serious.  "How the hell did you pull this off?"

"Remember the trip to the lavatory?"  Robotnik sneered as he said this.

I got real quiet.  "Oh...yeah, I remember that."

"I used that time to call zero-two, my new tranquilizer robot."

"Wait, this thing can – "  I was suddenly cut off as a sort of shock ran through my body and rendered me completely unconscious.

Chapter Fourteen

I slowly awoke to the sound of a serious fight going on.  Too tired to open my eyes, I was content to listen to the surroundings.  I heard the sound of a hammer crushing metal.  I also heard Knuckles.  "Because you're the fastest one!" he yelled.  I was picked up off of the asphalt ground in less than a second.

I struggled to open my eyes.  Sonic was carrying me and running at breakneck speed for the Tornado, Tails's plane, parked at the end of the Egg Carrier.  There was a blue sky overhead.  We were outside, apparently.  I was too groggy to make connections very quickly.

Sonic almost tripped.  "Jeez, you're heavy..."

I worked up the energy for a comeback.  "...Are you calling me fat...?..."

Sonic finally noticed that I was awake.  He made eye contact.  "Huh?  No, not at all.  You'll understand in a minute."

A split second later, a small explosion sent the two of us flying forwards.  I hit the ground hard and woke up completely.  I was face down on the asphalt.  Getting up on my hands and knees, I surveyed what was going on.  Knuckles, Tails, and Amy were still in the middle of the huge deck, putting up a hell of a fight against 02 and an assortment of E-100s.

Standing up, I immediately noticed something different.  I slowly checked myself out and saw what it was.  No way.  I was completely robotic from the knees down.  It was cool, undoubtedly, but I was still shaken by what could have happened if I hadn't been rescued in time.

I spotted Eggman trying to make a getaway in his hovering eggmobile for the top deck of the ship, suspended way up above.  He stopped and whirled around suddenly to glance at what was going on.  Our eyes locked.  Eggman fired several missiles right at me.  Still being slightly weak from the tranquilizer shock, I was way too slow to get out of the way in time.  Every single missile hit its mark.  I was blasted to the ground, tumbling a few feet backwards.

Robotnik was still watching me from a distance.  When he saw that I was alive and well, he glared at me.  Really hard.  It scared me.

I stood up shakily and fell down again on my own.  Another barrage of missiles flew my way and hit, sending me smashing into E-104.  Damn.  Eggman really did want to kill me, for whatever reason.  Now I was pissed.

I untangled myself from the now-busted robot and composed myself.  Locking my defiant stare on Robotnik, I took a solid metal step forward.  Robotnik hovered backwards a few feet.  I took another step.  He backed up some more.  I started walking.  He hit the wall behind him.  I broke into a run.  Robotnik fired a single missile, but I swerved and missed it.

I jumped.  Everything seemed to slow down at that moment.  I saw the look on Eggman's face as I came down for a flying double kick.  The metal chassis crumpled and the small glass windshield shattered on contact, and the huge jolt made Eggman's head snap backwards, knocking him out cold.  I back flipped up off of the mangled eggmobile and made a perfect landing on my feet some distance away.

The eggmobile exploded in a shower of sparks.  All the robots on deck halted.  They just stopped.  Not one moved.

Tails was on the ground face up, inches below 02's claws.  The fox scrambled backwards and stood up, glad to be away from the dangerous robot.  He shielded his eyes to get a better look at the mess of an eggmobile.

Knuckles and Amy had been back-to-back, fighting off any E-100's that came their way.  Now, they were just standing in the center of a ring of frozen robots, still posed for action.

I wiped my face with the back of my arm and sighed.  Apparently, the central control for all of the robots on deck was in the eggmobile, and the eggmobile was pretty much history now.

"Sonic!  Please, Sonic, wake up!"

I whirled around to see what was going on.  Over at the far end of the ship near the Tornado, Tails was on his knees, bent over Sonic's limp form, crying.  The other three of us ran over.

Tails covered his own face.  "I don't wanna touch him..."

I put my hand on Sonic's chest and was surprised to feel a heartbeat.  Maybe game sprites were really more than I thought.  "He's still alive, dude," I said.

"I know, but it still scares me..."  Tails turned away.

Knuckles kneeled down beside me and leaned his head down to listen for breathing.  All of a sudden, Amy slammed into us both, knocking us to either side.

"Out of my way!  This calls for mouth-to-mouth resuscitation!"

I shoved her back out of the way.  "What are you talking about?  Do you even know how?"

"He's still breathing!" shouted Knuckles.

She didn't pay any attention.  Pushing me aside again, she tilted Sonic's head back to free up the air flow, opened his mouth, pinched his nose shut, and bent down.  I had to delay her at any cost.  Sonic would probably be pissed if he woke up with Amy's mouth clamped over his.

I grabbed Amy's shoulders and tried to pull her upright.  She wriggled free and turned on me.  "What, are you jealous?"

Her statement took me completely and utterly by surprise.  "What!?  That's preposterous!  I don't care about the 'you and Sonic' thing at all, and I never have before in my life!"

Amy sat back on her knees.  "Oh.  I'm sorry."

Sonic stirred.  Tails's ears pricked up and he whirled around where he sat.  The fox crawled over.  "...Sonic?"

The blue hedgehog wiped his own face, groaning.  He opened his eyes and was kind of surprised to see all four of us kneeling in a circle looking down at him.  He sat up, rubbing his head.  "Oh, man...Hey, where's Eggman?"

We all had completely forgotten about the guy.  Luckily, he was still conked out in his crushed Eggmobile.  Knuckles helped support Sonic as the five of us walked over.


End file.
